Patient satisfaction is one of the barometers that reflect how well a health care system is working as it is a measure of the extent to which a patient is content with the health care that he or she receives from the provider [1] . It appears to represent patients’ attitudes to care or some aspects of care [2] and has, therefore, become increasingly important for healthcare professionals to systematically measure patients’ satisfaction with their care. Surveys of patient satisfaction tend to elicit very positive ratings but these ratings are not sensitive to specific problems in the quality of care delivered to patients in various centers. Professionals who deliver health care services should be aware of the needs and wants of their patients as their awareness would significantly affect the patients’ satisfaction [3] .

Studying patient satisfaction is an effective means of evaluating the performance of a hospital from the view of patients. The information obtained through this type of studies is valuable as that would remove the discrepancies which are distorting the patient satisfaction so as to make the hospital more attractive for the patient. Patients attending each hospital are responsible for spreading the good image of the hospital and therefore satisfaction of patients attending the hospital is equally important for hospital management [4] .

SERVICOM is an acronym for Service Compact with all Nigerians―a social contract the Federal Government entered into with all Nigerians on March 21, 2004 to provide basic services to which citizens are entitled to timely, fair, honest, effective, and transparent service [5] . It is machinery for institutionalizing effective public service delivery in Nigeria. SERVICOM golden rule is: serve others as you would like to be served. Its unit is present in all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of Government throughout the Federation and its vision statement in hospitals is usually to ensure delivery of quality healthcare services that are based upon the needs of patients by ensuring the provision of fundamental healthcare services to which each patient is entitled in a timely, fair, honest, effective and transparent manner.

Patient satisfaction in psychiatry is a complex issue with various influencing factors [6] . Nevertheless, delivery of patient-focused care requires that we provide care in a particular way, not just sometimes or usually, but always and it must be every patient every time [7] .

Satisfaction of psychiatric outpatients has been reported to be different in various clinical and demographic groups and across many domains of satisfaction [6] , sometimes varying across diagnostic groups with patients with schizophrenia being least satisfied, compared to patients with major depression who had highest satisfaction with services [6] [8] (although one study did not find any differences between major depressive disorder and schizophrenia in terms of satisfaction [9] ) and sometimes, with respect to duration of symptoms [10] .

Services provided at public health facilities in Nigeria have been reported to be perceived by members of the public to be very poor [11] , a perception held even by health care providers warranting their professional associations periodically demanding that government increases the funding of the health sector [12] [13] . Despite the introduction of SERVICOM over a decade ago, periodic patient satisfaction surveys are not yet routine in our hospitals. Such a survey is very important, especially in mental health services where the belief and attitude of the populace divert majority of the patients away from orthodox to non-orthodox facilities for care.

Only few specific reviews have been published on patient satisfaction with psychiatric services [14] [15] [16] . The Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki, is a young federal government-owned public health institution in South-East Nigeria poised with achieving all her vision and mission statements whose ultimate focus is on patient satisfaction. It is important to evaluate patient satisfaction not only as an outcome in itself but also because low satisfaction can lead to poor compliance with treatment and consequently to below average health outcomes [17] [18] [19] . The findings from this study would help the hospital management and the stakeholders in the Mental Health department identify areas that deserve improvement to ensure optimal service delivery to patients assessing psychiatric services in the institution.

This study aimed at:

1) Determining the level of satisfaction of patients receiving care from the psychiatric outpatient clinic of the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki; and

2) Exploring the factors associated with satisfaction or dissatisfaction of such patients.

This was a cross-sectional study carried out at the Out-patient unit of the Psychiatry department of the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki over a six month period, from 1st May to 30th October, 2016. The study population comprised adult out-patients, aged 18 years and above. All eligible and consenting patients seen within the study period were sampled.

Satisfaction of psychiatric outpatients has been reported to be different in various clinical and demographic groups and across many domains of satisfaction [6] .

Those who were married were more likely to be satisfied with psychiatric outpatient services compared to those widowed; similar to a recent Ethiopian report [22] .

Participants previously hospitalized had a higher level of satisfaction with quality of care compared with those who were never admitted, especially with respect to satisfaction with information given about payment and matching of treatment plan to patient’s individual needs. Similar finding had been reported [4] [23] .

Areas that had higher mean scores on CPOSS such as helpfulness of the records clerk, helpfulness of services received, and so on were in keeping with findings from a very recent local study among people with schizophrenia in Lagos, Nigeria [24] .

No significant differences in satisfaction among diagnostic groups is similar to an earlier finding by Olusina et al. [13] in a study in South-West Nigeria as well as a more recent foreign study [9] .

The relative less satisfaction with the cost of services could be attributed to some factors such as economic recession and increased hospital bill. At the time of this study (data collection), the country was at the peak of her economic recession, which contributed to the upward review of the bills of the hospital almost shortly before the onset of this study. Recessions are known to cause contractions in economic growth, leading to fiscal crises for governments, compromising their ability to fund medical care and eventually causing employers and hospital managements to alter their service charges to sustain the hospital expenditure and service provision [25] ; and patient satisfaction has been reported to be negatively associated with higher levels of hospital medical expenditure [26] . Other major factor responsible for the relative low satisfaction in this area is the fact that almost all the patients sampled have their bills paid directly by themselves or their family members; majority were not under the national health insurance scheme.

The good overall satisfaction with the care provided is similar to a study in a Finnish psychiatric hospital which reported that patients were generally quite satisfied with their care [10] .

The data collection procedure where a non-clinical staff, that the patient had nothing to gain from in terms of service, was assigned to give out the questionnaires and consent forms reduced bias on a participant’s report.

Those who could not read or write and those who presented outside normal working hours (for instance during call hours as emergencies) were excluded.

Patient satisfaction is a simple way to evaluate hospital services. Continual assessment of patient satisfaction levels is recommended to enable authorities improve on areas considered less satisfactory while sustaining areas of service deemed highly satisfactory. There is a need for every hospital to consider some waivers to patients with mental health problems while reviewing her bill.

Obayi, N.O.K., Igwe, M., Nnadozie, U., Urom-Oti, C. and Asogwa, F. (2018) Patient Satisfaction with Psychiatric Services: A Survey at a Nigerian Federal Teaching Hospital. Open Journal of Psychiatry, 8, 168-181. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojpsych.2018.82016